In 2007, when Michelle Homier moved her young family from Atlanta back to her hometown of Canton, Ga., she also relocated her career.
Homier, HTS 99, had worked at the Fulton County Public Defender’s Office for four years after graduating from the University of Georgia law school. But the commute between Canton and Atlanta, 80 miles round-trip, soon became a strain. So she changed jobs, joining the Cherokee County Solicitor General’s Office, where she was assigned to traffic court. At first she was happy to step back: Her workload was lighter than as a trial lawyer, and she relished the nimble thinking the cases required.
By 2012, though, Homier was itching for something new. She wanted to get beyond prosecuting and address some of the flaws in the system she’d observed over the years. And then, as if on cue, a Cherokee County state court judge announced his retirement. An unspoken professional rule pooh-poohs new candidates running against incumbent judges, and Homier knew it could be decades before another judge retired. So she made her move.
“It was just the time for me to stand up and give back to my community that I grew up in, and be a leader and tell people what my vision was,” she says.
Homier launched a grass-roots campaign, knocking on 1,800 doors and passing out hundreds of tote bags, notepads, bumper stickers and flyers. She recruited her husband, parents, friends—and even her two kids, then 4 and 2—for canvassing at farmer’s markets, outdoor concerts and parades. “I just did it based on my heart and where I thought large groups of people would be,” she recalls.
Homier was elected the first female state court judge in Cherokee County in July 2012 and took office on Jan. 2. She remains committed to the promises of her campaign: offering alternatives in hardship cases where defendants can’t pay legal fines, developing a mental health court for Cherokee County and encouraging substance abuse treatment for first-time DUI offenders.
“There’s constantly this balance between ‘I need to do what I think is right’ and ‘I need to do what I can under the law,’” she says. “Although I would like this job for way more than four years, I’ve only been given the job for the next four years.”
Just a few months into her term, she’s already made a name for herself: “the judge with the purple robes,” to be exact. (Her vestments were custom made in her favorite color by the wife of a colleague.) But, Homier says, her most important title is one she’s had all along: “Mom.”
Balancing work and family can be tricky, but it’s a challenge she faces along with many other women in her field, as she learned during a recent training conference for new judges. The training was held in Athens, Ga., on a day when bad storms were rolling through Atlanta.
“It was mothers in the group who were out in the hallways during the conference trying to call and make sure their kids were OK, make alternative plans,” she remembers. “Because, at the heart of it, that’s really who we still are.”
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